In a last-minute decision, Charlotte decides not to accompany Julien on a trip to Africa, one which they had for quite sometime planned out together. Instead, she hides herself away in a little house by a river where nobody, neither family nor friends, who believe she is away for several months, would think to pull her from her isolation. We watch as Charlotte, who is incapable of dealing with Julien’s absence, slips deeper into her own private hell. Her alcoholic state brings her to imagine the worst for Julian, of whom she has no news, and to place herself in increasingly dangerous situations. This book reads like a suspense novel. Francine D’Amour is at the height of her art and Charlotte’s monologues, though filled with anguish, do not exclude self-mockery.